Soc. Sci. 2015, 4, 533–545; doi:10.3390/socsci4030533
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social sciences
ISSN 2076-0760
www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci
Article
The Social Constructedness of Resilience
Martin Endress
Department IV: Business Administration, Economics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Business
Informatics, University of Trier, Trier 54286, Germany; E-Mail: [email protected];
Tel.: +49-651-201-2697; Fax: +49-651-201-3933
Academic Editor: Gernot Grabher
Received: 26 February 2015 / Accepted: 22 July 2015 / Published: 30 July 2015
Abstract: This essay aims to clarify what it means to de-essentialize the concept of
“resilience”. Pre-determinated assumptions regarding its normativity or positive character
are to be disproven in order to conceptualize it as an open (social) process; thus to adopt a
social constructivist perspective on the phenomenon to which this term refers, while
avoiding the typical pitfalls of relativism.
Keywords: resilience; social construction; relevance; perspectivity; relativism; temporality;
normality; power
1. Introduction
The multidisciplinary discourse of and about “resilience” has achieved considerable prominence [1–3].
We find the term being used in a variety of ways and with a diverse array of meanings in numerous
scientific, professional and even everyday contexts. Professional actors “observe” phenomena through
a conceptual apparatus centered on resilience; academic disciplines, meanwhile, use this concept to
“observe” both the everyday, professional (practicing therapists, pedagogues, psychologists) and
political uses of the concept (“the jargon of resilience”), as well as scrutinizing academic perspectives
that deploy the term. When looking at how the term “resilience” is typically used, it is striking that it
(1) has a markedly positive charge (the resilience of “x” is good, desirable, etc.); that it (2) implies
both a supposedly clear knowledge about what is to count as a threat, etc., as well as what should be
regarded as an appropriate approach and objective (within the framework of the management of
resilience) and that (3) alongside a starting point taken as unambiguously fixed, the term also implies
an equally obvious endpoint of a process. The argument of the present essay is that, for sociological
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purposes, we need to revise this normative, conceptual and temporal character [4]. This is mostly
identifiable in the current uses of the concept of resilience, particularly, though not exclusively in the
therapeutic, pedagogical and (developmental) psychological literature [5–7]. Hence, this essay seeks to
highlight and discuss a number of conceptual problems and questions associated with a social
constructivist reorientation of research on resilience to sociological ends. In the following considerations,
I consistently refer to resilience as an (interpretive) perspective. The paper starts with some remarks
introducing the social construction perspective (2), which consequently leads to the sociology of the
knowledge approach analyzing the current prominence of the resilience concept (3). I will then introduce
a heuristic, which can help to develop a sociologically-viable concept of resilience (4), and add some
concluding remarks on the three-part research task for which a sociology of resilience should strive (5).
2. Preliminary Remarks: Social Construction Perspective
In what direction do the following reflections point us when they underline the social constructivist
character of “resilience”? What does this emphasis mean beyond the simple fact of perspectivity,
beyond the various aspects of the concept of resilience that are accentuated in different social situations
and its differing manifestations within them? What are we asking about when referring to the historicity
and constructedness of “x”? Specifically and with respect to the case that is to be discussed here: what
are we asking about, or which conceptual aspects are we emphasizing, when we foreground the social
constructivist character of the concept of “resilience” with respect to every instance of its usage?
Generally speaking, a social constructivist approach to examining social reality, in other words to
understanding and explaining it, is geared towards this reality’s constitutive relationship to, and
constitutive interrelationship with, certain interpretations, ideas and conceptions 1 . This perspective
functions on the assumption that when constructivist authors talk about social reality, they always
investigate it partly as a result of the beliefs and insights of individuals and “collective” interpretive
models, just as social reality in this sense is also a topic and object of everyday conversations. This
means that what social “units” (individuals, groups, associations, societies, etc.) comprehend and in
some cases communicate as “their view of things“ (or what can be reconstructed as such on the basis
of their actions and words) depends on their specific situation and their specific interpretation of this
situation and the expressive options (objectively) available to them. Varying criteria of social rationality
are mobilized in this context [11], whose plausibility and potential for legitimation can be gleaned
reconstructively from the interpretive schemes characteristic of a particular group or sociocultural epoch.
In research, a social constructivist approach is necessarily beholden to a comparative perspective.
This methodological perspective compares “something” with a view toward “something” else; in other
words, its observation of difference is only possible against the background of a reference to something
allegedly “identical” or against the background of a reference to another “something” in light of which
or in comparison with which the “something” or the other “somethings” can appear as specifically
socially-constructed and, thus, as different. This recourse to an antecedent comparative reference point,
which can inevitably prove its value only through subsequent empirical analysis, constitutes an
imperishable epistemological circularity, one that distinguishes an analytical social constructivist
1
Classical sociological reference: [8]. As for our current topic, see, for example: [9,10].
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perspective as a continuous process, while at the same time underscoring this perspective’s relationship
to the object that helps constitute it 2.
Beyond a specifically sociological analysis of social reality, it can by now surely be considered both
quotidian and scientific common sense that the various interpretations that arise, in other words the
processes of coding and recoding resilience (or social phenomena from a resilience point of view), are
dependent on attention structures and expectational horizons among the actors who adopt these
perspectives in any given case, that is on their social situation. A sociological analysis that examines
the concept of resilience from a social constructivist perspective, according to my view, should
therefore scrutinize (1) the socio-historical genesis of this concept; (2) the typical groups of agents who
use it; (3) the temporal-spatial parameters of its use; (4) the ideas or key concepts alluded to (or not) to
explain resilience perspectives; and (5) the conceptual apparatus used (or not) on the basis of these
ideas or key notions. The following remarks challenge a number of what I think reckon to be crucial
conceptual issues for the kind of empirical studies that will be central here.
As an observational category, the social constructedness of resilience is itself a multilayered
phenomenon. If we want to be systematic, it is important to analyze this phenomenon with respect to
the relationship between knowledge (as an interpretive resource) and spatial structures [13], social
structures [14] and temporal structures. However, it seems particularly important here to reflect upon
time. This relates to the time prior to disruptive events (ex ante), and thus, the question of what
societies (social units) identify as potential vulnerabilities and threats and as associated options for
coping, adaptation and transformation [15–17], how or why they regard this resilience as relevant and
what is regarded as the resilient unit, the “core” that must be preserved, in other words the reference
point of measures intended to achieve resilience [18]. Examination of time also, and from the same
angle, relates to processes and situations in the wake of disruptive events. In particular, it concerns the
period following disruptive events (ex post), during which there is a reflexive focus on the perspectives
on “resilience” (and the measures introduced in an attempt to achieve it) that have de facto proven
historically impactful and effective. Furthermore, significant here are the consequences, side-effects
and, in some cases, paradoxical effects of processes formerly interpreted as relating to the “production”
of resilience, effects that come into focus as a function of the temporal horizons of observation.
To call for sociological research in order to take a fundamentally social constructivist approach is
by no means to endorse a relativistic sociology of knowledge; this is an important point given recent
discussions within the sociology of science and recurrent critiques emanating from objective
hermeneutics [12,19]. The interpretive models introduced or harnessed to identify resilience come up
against their limits first through internal-situational standards of appropriateness or criteria of plausibility
and second, spanning situations, through categories’ constitutive rule-like characters. Oevermann
refers here to “universal rules not amenable to material criticism” that generate sense or meaning [12].
Current discussions on the monetary policies of the European Central Bank provide a graphic illustration
of this difference. Various commentators have discussed whether the flooding of European markets
with Euros serves to stabilize the Eurozone or whether it is in fact failing to do so. Evidently, this is in
the first instance a question of the temporal horizon in which one aims to answer this question (in
2
The same argument appears in Oevermann’s systematic reflections on the methodological classification of a social
constructivist perspective [12].
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analogy to the question of the soundness or success and side-effects of the Federal Reserve’s monetary
policy at the beginning of the financial crisis). However, beyond this, it is a question of the criteria
used to assess the quality of this monetary policy. Inevitably, this assessment entails intuitive
judgements about what “essentially holds together” societies that are or will be affected by this policy;
about how these societies and their internal structures either ensure or do not ensure a decent existence
for those affected. Such assessments or the grounds for such assessments (which are not explicitly
discussed) incorporate dimensions of implicit knowledge or practical consciousness, or even intuitive
elegance, that are nothing less than constitutive rules a là John Searle [20]. Therefore, from a
sociological point of view, a social constructionist perspective is needed in resilience research in order
to overcome its common normative, teleological and objective research perspective.
3. The Prominence of Resilience: A Sociology of Knowledge Perspective
Among other things, concepts and their uses document dominant aspects of societies’ self-perception.
The general observational climate is one in which terms such as insecurity, risk (which can be predicted
or calculated only to a limited extent and is largely uncontrollable), danger, threat, hazard, uncertainty,
crisis and disaster play a key role (or have played it for a good twenty-five years and will likely
continue to do so). It is thus evidently no longer sustainability and/or progress or development that
function as things to avoid or strive for, but rather phenomena that inform widely-propagated strategies
for dealing with dangers, hazards or disasters; it is increasingly the concept of resilience. Those authors
who have brought new spheres of society into the concept’s remit aim, for example, to foster resilient
organizations and resilient types of democracy, while books on how to achieve and foster individual
resilience as a means of resisting the imponderables and abysses of life sell like hot cakes. The
question thus arises as to what is understood by resilience, by whom, in which contexts and to what
extent this empirically-demonstrable shift in key communicative currencies expresses more profound
changes, for example, in typical societal interpretations of social relations and of the social awareness
of the consciousness of time.
Why are various agents using the tool of “resilience” to describe, interpret and decide what to do?
What does the evidently increased appeal of the concept of “resilience” consist of? Are there aspects
“in the nature of the beast” that reveal the concept’s current resonance as more than a fashionable
phenomenon and render it comprehensible? What are the contours of the interpretive model of
“resilience”, that is which structures of self- and world observation or interpretation can be reconstructively
identified as aspects of this concept or model?
On the one hand, within society as a whole, key prerequisites for the (no longer quite so
contemporary) career of the concept of resilience within the widest variety of scientific, professional,
political and other discourses probably lie in the growing tendency, towards the end of the twentieth
century, to reflect on the internal history of violence and destruction characteristic of the Western type
of modernity. On the other hand, they lie in the parallel need to pay attention to the primarily
scientifically- and technologically-generated scenarios outlining the extent of threats and damage
(interpreted in terms of complexity theory), scenarios also generated within modernity [21–26]. This
dual reflexive movement sets in motion a progressive process of sociocultural unsettling.
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In line with this, the background to the career enabled by the concept of “resilience” for a number of
years, including in the social scientific context, is a specific hallmark of (Western) modernity and the
place of the human beings within the framework of this constellation: acting and interpreting are to be
found constitutively in the “mode of fundamental uncertainty” [27]. Various authors have identified a
disenchantment of all cultural certainties and associated losses and pluralizations of criteria (loss of
orientational, as well as ontological security). Others have diagnosed the dissolution of linearities of
practical action, the associated multiplication of the simultaneous and of the perceived pressure of
acceleration (loss of time for action). These are the interpretive cornerstones of a practice of living that
is increasingly conceptualized as onerous. There are also communicative uncertainties: metanarratives’
diminishing relevance not only imposes significant obstacles in the way of all practices of legitimation,
but intrinsically bound up with this are central factors in the dynamization of sociocultural interpretive
resources, due among other things to countervailing processes and claims of rationalization.
In this sense, the prominence of the concept of resilience may articulate a “new culture of uncertainty”
that has bid farewell to the notion that it is in principle possible to achieve total security or
controllability ([28], p. 65; [29], pp. 19, 29).
However, what is the relationship and what are the interactions between the concept of resilience
and other concepts and terms found in recent societal self-descriptions? Here, we must surely ask in
what respects and to what degree of importance certain concepts share such things as semantic aspects
or key ideas with the concept of resilience or are incorporated into it. On the one hand, this involves
concepts, such as those of endangerment or threatenedness, risk, crisis, disaster, but also prevention
and sustainability, which are essentially a reaction to social and societal dimensions of the challenges
specific to modernity. On the other hand, it also applies to concepts such as that of vulnerability, activation,
empowerment, flexibility, creativity or (life-long) learning, which predominantly respond to the
individual, subjective side of the modernity-specific hallmarks of the contemporary era [17,30].
Overall, however, the conceptualizations of resilience that are being deployed primarily have yet to
address specific problems, namely how the various challenges (described as disruptive and identified
as threats to survival) are being dealt with in particular cases (that is, which strategies are being
deployed and which practices are proving conducive to resilience) and which resources of a wide array
of different kinds are (or can be) deployed, such that the survival of a given social unit (or its
“function”, “structure”, “feedbacks” and/or “identity”) is or might be preserved [15,31].
If we attempt a typological approximation, we can distinguish descriptive-analytical uses of the
concept and pronounced normative-interventionist understandings. Descriptive empirical perspectives
limit themselves to the descriptive recording of what they view as ex post “empirical expressions” of
resilience; in other words, their impact. Interventionist perspectives, in contrast, seek to conceptualize
an ideal form of a given resilient unit ex ante in order to then formulate guides to achieving a state of
resilience. In both cases, then, we find that “resilience” is currently being debated as an objective of
unquestioned validity given the challenges faced by both subjects and forms of sociality. By way of
contrast, the present contribution advocates comprehending resilience as an analytical perspective on
social units or phenomena that examines when, by whom and to what extent (in other words, through
recourse to which key ideas and criteria of rationality) something is regarded, or is, or was communicated
as threatened, or vulnerable, or at risk with respect to specific social units or phenomena. We would
then have to examine how a particular interpretation becomes or became established in this way or
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how a relevant interpretation of the situation that has taken hold sets or set in motion particular
processes of social action 3. In the following, I will try to present an analytical framework for such a
research agenda.
4. Normative Neutrality, Temporality, Perspectivity and Power
For the reasons set out above, if we want to develop a sociologically-viable concept of resilience, in
contrast to the common use of the concept in pedagogy, individual and personality psychology and
therapeutic contexts [5–7], as well as in social ecology [1,15,29,33–35], but also in contradistinction to
the ways in which political science [36,37] has taken up the concept, our goal must be to (1) adopt a
normatively neutral perspective; (2) pay attention to the structural logic of reflection that ensues from
the use of a concept of resilience; (3) conceive of changes examined empirically in any given case as
processually open; and (4) take account of the agonal dimension, that is to include issues of power or
interpretive sovereignty, since the concept of resilience is interpreted in a variety of ways that operate
with differing references (postulates of relevance) and differing hierarchies of relevance.
4.1. Normative Neutrality
In the first instance, it is hardly surprising if a resilience perspective entails a normative reference
point. If we work on the assumption of objectively existing vulnerabilities and dangers and of target
states that are also objectively identifiable or (social) conditions that are regarded as desirable, as
manifested for example in objectives such as security, health or, more generally, social “well-being”,
then we are confronted with resilience as a condition, or resistance, and they go hand-in-hand with a
perspective that envisages saving all that which is identified as under threat. When it comes to the
analytical interests of sociological enquiry, however, we must fundamentally question this perspective.
A sociology-of-knowledge and social constructivist approach to resilience must inevitably relativize
normative certainties with respect to their historicity or their dependence on specific temporal, spatial
and social contexts and the parameters of their genesis, in other words contextualize them (without, as
hinted earlier, endorsing relativistic arguments).
The problem of the normativity of resilience approaches is evident in more concrete form when we
look at the prominent notions of the resistance and survival of existing entities, which draw, among
other things, on (normatively charged) ideas of normality and functionality and are therefore attacked
for being structurally conservative 4. Though such a critique must be qualified since contemporary
concepts of resilience, in contrast to a simplistic concept of “engineering resilience”, begin their
analyses with not one, but multiple stable states [15,31], these concepts still tend to view the preservation
of the (normatively) assumed identity of a threatened social entity as a positive goal, which means they
(must) consider comprehensive, and especially disruptive, social changes as something that ought in
principle to be avoided. This immanence of normativity in the approaches to resilience that have
dominated so far underlines the general need to revise these contributions with a view toward
including a resilience perspective in the sociological debate and theory building.
3
4
One of these interpretations then proceeds to identify a process of neoliberalization: see [32].
Joseph: “The conservative ontology behind this” ([32], p. 43).
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From a sociological angle, every concept of resilience and every perspective on resilience must be
considered structurally ambivalent in normative terms. Sociologists can neither distinguish a particular
form of resilience and, thus, specific target states as normatively positive regardless of historical era,
nor can they privilege specific measures that lead to or preserve this particular form as timelessly valid.
Additionally, this is applied in both respects simply because of the substantial historicity of that which
is marked out as normatively valid at a given point in social history.
4.2. Temporality
When we turn to the analysis of time, we can then discern a peculiar feature of the logical structure
of reflections on the concept of resilience: this structure is paradoxical in the sense that for social units,
the definition of resilience can only ever be identified and formulated on an ex post basis, in other
words their capacity to withstand certain situations that have proven threatening can only be
established retrospectively, yet in considering the resilience of social units, certain resources must
always inevitably be identifiable or identified ex ante as conducive to resilience. At the same time,
within a particular era, something is always discerned or identified as a danger, as a threat or challenge
to the survival of a social unit, with respect to which, in the past, this social unit pursued measures
(actions, strategies) regarded as tried-and-tested or valued in order to secure a desired (hoped-for,
routinely expected) future and repulse these threats.
In brief: In retrospect (ex post), something may have proven resilient of which actors previously
(ex ante) had no awareness. Indeed, that they may have had no awareness of an “object” of possible
resilience or could have had no awareness of such due to the observational perspectives that were
objectively available to them in the past.
As a consequence, every sociological analysis of resilience that entails a constitutive historical
perspective must attempt to identify an identitarian “center of gravity” that is continually developing in
view of current challenges arising from processes of change; and must therefore itself be understood as
a process. This is a center of gravity that we must in a sense conceptualize as a self-processing (temporal)
core of identity, in order to clarify our analytical point of reference within the research process itself 5.
4.3. Perspectivity
It is also crucial to pursue and fortify this processual perspective, which views resilience as not
absolutely present and as a historically “open question”, in other words as ongoing, in the context of a
sociological analysis of social resilience that continues to reflexively ensure the historicity of its
“object” and the historicity of its own observations. This processually open perspective, which is
geared towards the perspective-dependency and level or layer relativity of social resilience, has already
been addressed in a basic way in the models of the “adaptive (renewal) cycle” and of panarchy within
socio-ecological research [34,35,38,39]. This, however, has not reached an adequate level for the
purposes of sociological analysis.
The specific problems that ensue from this perspective (a vital tool for sociologists if they wish to
be historically aware and sensitive to context) are clearly apparent in the difficulties involved in
5
For a first attempt to discuss this issue in dialogue with classic sociological contributions, see [18].
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determining the so-called “resilient unit” that forms the focus of analysis in a given case. This is
because the identificatory core of a social unit, which is central to a given analysis depending on its
observational stance and is comprehended as worth preserving or protecting, constitutes this unit in the
first place. The question of the perspective that is associated (ex ante) with a resilience concept for a
particular social unit, and with the resilience strategies that are mobilized to protect it, is beholden to
the identificatory core that has been singled out in order to define it. Therefore, regardless of problems
that arise from the concurrence of resilience perspectives that enjoy formal analytical equality with
respect to a social unit, what we must keep in mind is that when the identificatory core, with respect to
which a social unit is discussed, shifts in the course of the historical process, the resilience perspective
also necessarily shifts; and once again, on an ex post basis.
At this point, we again see the significance of highlighting the structural ambivalence of resilience.
What this means here is that, first, an increase in the adaptability of a social unit at point in time t1 may
result in a reduction in its resilience at a point in time t2 (as a result, among other things, of potential
side-effect dynamics), and that resilience cannot be reduced to prevention and precaution [17]. Second,
highlighting this structural ambivalence means that very different resilience perspectives (may) arise
depending on the “core” that is regarded as worth preserving and protecting against threats. In other
words, resilience is a perspectival phenomenon; and in general terms, both aspects imply the
problematization, if not renunciation, of teleological analyses that assume clear-cut causalities. Therefore,
from a sociological standpoint, we must pay attention to processes of resilient existence-preservation,
as well as the negative consequences of (objectively) failed strategies of resilience. In concrete terms,
this means that (empirical) analyses must take account of side-effects in the sense of unforeseen,
unforeseeable and even ignored effects of actions; discern paradoxes in as much as the direct pursuit of
specific goals can make the achievement of these goals less likely; and pay attention to contradictions
and processes that (objectively) contradict one another, in other words track processes whose
objectives clash [40,41].
As cautious as we must be when delving into historical research fields, we may perhaps illuminate
this analytical trope of structural ambivalence (particularly when making recourse to various temporal
layers of historical processes) in connection with innovations undertaken by Charlemagne in order to
secure his power. Over the course of centuries, the perpetuation of these innovations generated a
pronounced destabilizing dynamic for structures of power. As the successor to Clovis I, Charlemagne
tried to secure the Francia that emerged under the former around 500 BC, 300 years later, by creating a
new form of political rule, vassalage, which involved granting his followers estates along with the
peasants living on the associated territories on a loaned basis (“fee”; Latin: feudum). This innovation,
which can be understood as a strategy of resilience, initially ensured stability for the empire through
the profound loyalty and binding force that it generated. As this system was perpetuated over time,
however, it not only generated primogeniture, but also a dynamic of hierarchization that led to a
complex system of subvassals, with serfs at the bottom end of the status pyramid (lacking the status of
person). This development in turn had substantial destabilizing effects.
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4.4. Power
What this shows is that any sociological research program on the resilience of a
sociology-of-knowledge and social constructivist tenor must be rounded off by exploring which
(social, communicative) constructions, perceptions, interpretations and knowledge stocks gained
currency within a particular (social, field-specific) discourse, in other words which achieved interpretive
force within society and how this occurred. What we need to investigate are the social fields,
professional contexts and institutions in which concepts of resilience are enforced and various
programs of action are propagated and implemented using these concepts. In addition, we must
scrutinize those groups of agents who make it their business to (re-)code resilience and to flag up their
interests under the banner of resilience.
These programs may include those within the fields of ecology, health and self-help, as well as the
fields of security, social or urban policy. To flesh out what this means for studies mindful of the
insights above, we can point, for example, to debates that understand and criticize resilience, chiefly
through the prism of theories of governmentality, as a new form of neoliberal government 6. At issue
here is the (seemingly paradoxical) shift and attribution of responsibility to subjects (responsibilization)
in a context marked by (generally unforeseeable) side-effect dynamics. The corresponding techniques
of power are frequently flanked by (ultimately cynical) attempts to label such allocations of responsibility
as forms of “empowerment”.
To sum up, sociological research on resilience, which is aware of the normative neutrality, the
temporality, the constitutive perspectivity, as well as of the unavoidable power-relatedness of the
concept of resilience, will manage to conceptualize the phenomena in question as an open socio-historical
processes. Thus, a constructionist concept of resilience can serve as a new analytical perspective to
identify former, as well as current social processes, which societies and social constellations undergo
in historical change.
5. Conclusions
What follows from the foregoing remarks on the social construction of “resilience”? Any sociological
analysis of the use of the concept of “resilience” in contemporary societies and any attempt to sound
out its analytical potential for sociological studies should take on an at least a three-part research task
that can be differentiated analytically. It must (1) study the genealogy (the “career”) of the concept
from a sociology-of-knowledge and sociology-of-science perspective in everyday, professional,
socio-political and scientific-disciplinary contexts—since when [42], where, by whom and how is the
concept of resilience used here—and it must (2) examine the relevance ascribed to the concept of
“resilience” in these contexts with a view toward analyzing it from a societal or social perspective:
relevance that is articulated against the background of increasing communication (on the level of an
expressive repertoire) about social insecurity, uncertainty, a sense of threat, among other things,
because of the observed side-effects of scientific-technological civilization and cultural constellations
understood as other. Additionally, it must examine (3) the resonance that follows from the identifiable
genealogy and ascribed relevancies of the concept of “resilience” for this interpretive perspective, a
6
Especially Joseph [32].
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resonance generated by the interpretive power or interpretive sovereignty of the actors enforcing this
perspective in view of the associated potential for structuring and restructuring experiences and
expectations. All three aspects are due to an evidently changed societal perception of problems, which
endows conceptual “fashions”, changed relevancies and, thus, other interpretations with societal
efficacy (interpretive sovereignty).
What are the implications and consequences of the reflections above for the design of sociological
studies on resilience from a pragmatic research perspective? What we must analyze are the ideas or
key ideas and interpretive models on which actors draw to identify all of the phenomena that become
relevant within the conceptual framework of resilience or with respect to it. This applies to described
vulnerabilities and threats to survival, as well as to those professional actors (such as therapists and
advisers) who place themselves on the agenda of resilience with respect to the potential for action to
which they lay claim and those resources that, for example, are articulated for certain social spaces
and/or social entities. We must investigate the impacts and the formative potential of (key) ideas,
interpretive models and the criteria of rationality that are deployed within their framework in the wake
of processes and strategies of resilience and with respect to resources of resilience.
For theoretical and empirical studies, the terms “ideas” and “key ideas” comprise the investigation
of the social relevance of legal, literary, religious, societal or (socio-)political semantics and interpretations.
In concrete terms, we may be dealing here with individual and collective (socio-spatially specific)
self-descriptions and self-constructs (in the sense of models of affiliation and identification), actors’
structures of expectation and meaning or specific political, legal, aesthetic, religious, scientific and
professional legitimizations, for example of strategies and programs.
In this sense, a social constructivist investigative perspective on this phenomenon must also analyze
the perspectival shift frequently associated with the current dominance of the concept of resilience as
analytical foil. In the same vein, we must also question, for example, whether and, if so, to what extent
we can identify the concept of sustainability shifting away towards that of resilience and whether such
a shift may indicate a move away from an (activist) category geared towards future potential to shape
the world (sustainability) towards a more (passivist) category geared towards tried-and-tested elements
of the past and constellations worth protecting (resilience). However, beyond such a material definition,
we must first recognize that the concept of resilience is deployed to observe phenomena that are
regarded as under threat with respect to their plasticity, in other words with respect to the malleability
that has facilitated their “survival” or has the potential to do so.
Every reference to the social construction of “x”, however justifiable it may be from a methodological
point of view, must nonetheless remain “empty” as long as it has yet to be verified through empirical
studies that can demonstrate differing group-, context- and situation-specific codings of “resilience”.
For the empirical investigation of (key) ideas and interpretive models, our analyses are guided by a
dual perspective in the sense that, on the one hand, ideas function reflexively as descriptive repertoire
and interpretive resources facilitative of coping, adaptation and transformation and must be investigated;
yet on the other hand, ideas just as reflexively facilitate the identification of resilience, vulnerabilities,
resilience processes, resources and strategies in the first place, in other words constitute them.
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Acknowledgements
The arguments developed in this contribution owe much to the many discussions on contemporary
research on resilience that I have had over the last few months, in particular with Benjamin Rampp, but
also Christina Geibel, Andreas Zerver and other colleagues of the University of Trier. This present essay
builds on the two preliminary reflections on a sociological theory of resilience that I have published
jointly with Benjamin Rampp [4,18]. The current article focuses on a meta-theoretical approach and its
practical research consequences, which had been identified as one of seven overarching issues
characteristic of sociological theories of resilience (especially [4], pp. 42, 44–45). See also [26].
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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